December is a terrible month for the party defeated in the November elections. The losers not only sit on the sidelines watching the victors work on transition plans. But they are also expected to perform one of the most humiliating rituals in modern politics: The Protracted Post-Mortem.
In a typical PPM, the losing party (egged on by the press) engages in a round of internal recrimination where fingers are pointed, blame is assigned, and calls for heads to roll are loudly announced. The media proclaim that a battle for the soul of the party is (or should be) taking place, being careful to assign the moral high ground to the side that does not have a chance of winning. And people in my line of work, the punditocracy, suggest that more defeats are inevitable unless the party reorganizes along the lines that we outline.
All of this makes for wonderful theatre (and keeps us political junkies from post-election depression), but rarely has anything to do with how political parties actually operate.
In Virginia, people outside the Republican Party have adopted a very clear position during this year’s PPM. The GOP is losing, it is said, because it has become too conservative and needs to become more moderate if it is to regain its competitiveness in statewide elections. From this perspective, the nosedive taken by Republicans in Northern Virginia, along with the decline in the GOP brand in other metropolitan areas, can only reversed if the party listens to moderates such as Tom Davis instead of consigning him to political exile.
There is, of course, some merit to the argument. The GOP can’t lose NOVA by 220,000 votes and win statewide elections. Moderates like Tom Davis do feel increasingly unwelcome in the party. And, more ominously, large swatches of the electorate are coming to believe that the GOP is not very interested in their problems.
But none of these matters will be solved by a battle for the soul of the Republican Party between moderates and conservatives, at least not in 2009. The war has already been waged. The results are in. Conservatives have won. And regardless of what anyone outside the party thinks, it is obvious that conservatives will be the party’s standard bearers in the statewide elections of 2009.
The real issue, then, will be related to the leadership qualities and campaign skills of Bob McDonnell. Can he offer concrete solutions (pun half intended) to the transportation problems that afflict voters in NOVA and Hampton Roads? Can he develop a welcoming and inclusive conservatism that does not place our growing ethnic communities on the periphery of the “real Virginia?” And can he staunch the exodus of business leaders from the party who are frustrated with gridlock on transportation?
Republicans in Virginia and nationally will have a lot riding on McDonnell. I think I already know the question that will be driving the 2009 post-mortems. Is a retooled conservative message offered by a strong candidate enough to bring the Republican Party out of the wilderness?
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